(Post)colonial worlding in Jordan's nature reserves: Conservation, racial science, and national identity

Abstract

The 1960s saw a series of British expeditions to Jordan to establish protected areas. By carefully examining archival material pertaining to these expeditions, I demonstrate how these expeditions, and the protected areas they sought to establish, constituted crucial acts of (post)colonial worlding. These expeditions took place almost twenty years after the end of administrative colonialism in 1947 and reveal how conservation in Jordan remained entangled in colonial knowledge production and spatial control. I trace how conservation agendas in these expeditions were shaped by racial science, environmental orientalism, and geopolitical alliances, influencing both material practices and cultural framings of nature. When turning to the relationship between Jordanian elites and conservation, I demonstrate how (post)colonial identity struggles became central to conservation. A decolonial reading of the archive illuminates not only the dominance of colonial narratives but also the absence of Jordanian archival materials. Yet what is available, offers conservation framings rooted in geopolitics, mobility, and national identity. This paper advances two arguments. First, historical geographical approaches to (post)colonial worldmaking must engage more critically with conservation. Second, decolonial approaches to the archive demonstrate how conservation participates in worldmaking projects. Attending to archival presences and silences is key to forging more equitable conservation futures.